The rat on fire

25

Mavis Davis sat in Wilfrid Mack’s office at 8:45 p.m. and looked worried. “I hate to bother you, Mister Mack,” she said.

“It’s no bother,” he said. “I’m out of here most of the day. If I’m not in court, I’m in the State House. I expect to be here at night. It’s the only time I can see people, and after all, this job wasn’t forced on me. It’s just that I do have to tell you that I can’t represent Alfred unless I get a fee, and it’s going to have to be a substantial one.”

“Mister Mack,” she said, “Alfred hasn’t got any money and I sure don’t.”

“Look,” Mack said, “I know that. I know Alfred hasn’t any money and I know the trouble you had coming up with my fee a good many years ago, when everything was cheaper. But you have to understand: I don’t have any money either. I have to make a living too. If I don’t charge Alfred and everybody else I represent, I won’t be able to stay in business. I filed my appearance for him this morning for purposes of arraignment only because I can’t afford to go around taking cases for clients who can’t pay me anything. I just can’t do it. If Alfred wants me to try his case for him in court, Alfred is going to have to come up with a lot of money. Otherwise I am not going to be able to do it. And I won’t do it, either. Not that it’s going to matter much.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Mrs. Davis,” Mack said, “Alfred jumped a cop and tried to whap him around with a tire iron. As usual, Alfred was careful to make sure that there was another witness around. Another cop, to be exact. Not to mention his sister and probably some other folks that I don’t know about yet, but who know Alfred and could pick him out of a two-hundred-man line-up.”

“Selene,” she said, “they can’t make Selene testify.”

“Unfortunately,” Mack said, “they can make Selene testify. They maybe can’t make her tell the truth, but they can make her testify. If they choose to do so. Which I can’t imagine why they would want to, since if I ever heard of a case that was ironclad, airtight, gone for sure and over with, this is it. But if they decide that they want to hammer her, they can do it, and if she lies about recognising her brother or her boyfriend, they will be in a position to do something to Selene. If they want to. Nope, they can haul her in. They have got the Davis family in a very tight corner.”

“Mister Mack,” she said, “we had a fire at Bristol Road today.”

“Oh, my God,” Mack said. “Was anybody hurt?”

“Nobody was hurt,” she said. “The only person in the building apparently was Alfred, and he was sleeping after he got home from court, but it was just smoke and stuff and he got out all right.

“Alfred,” she said, “Alfred was up all night. He didn’t get no sleep after they arrested him and he was scared and he just went home and he went to bed and he was sleeping.”

“Alfred was sleeping,” Mack said.

“Yes, he was,” she said. “He was sleeping. He told me he was sleeping so he’d be able to go to work tonight and help me get that money back that I paid for his bail there, and I believe him.”

“You believe him,” Mack said.

“He was all hurt, Mister Mack,” she said. “They beat on him something fearful, them cops. He was sore and he was hurt and he didn’t have any medical down at the jail there. Yeah, I believe him.”

“I don’t,” Mack said.

“Senator,” she said, “the hell you mean by that?”

“Mrs. Davis,” he said, “I have talked with Alfred. I have represented Alfred. Alfred is the most difficult client I ever had in my entire professional career. Alfred does not lie all the time, which I guess is to his credit. But Alfred does not tell the truth all the time, either, and I never know what or which time it is when Alfred is talking to me.

“You’re in a different position,” Mack said. “You are Alfred’s mother. This is a terrible burden that was put on you, but I guess probably the Lord Jesus has His reasons for doing things like this to perfectly decent people. I suppose when Alfred says something, such as that he was sleeping, you are more or less obliged to believe it, for that reason.

“I am not Alfred’s mother,” Mack said. “There are some things in my life I would change if God gave me half a chance, but that is not one of them. I am very grateful that I am not Alfred’s mother. I would rather have a good case of malaria than anything that put me in a position where I was probably obliged to believe what Alfred said.”

“Mister Mack,” she said.

“No,” he said. “No, I won’t listen to it. You have to listen to Alfred, but I do not. I listened to Alfred today, when he had a bad case against a cop, and I spent the morning wasting my time in court because Alfred tried to do something about his dislike for that cop. Alfred did not pay me any money. I listened to Alfred the other day and then I listened to you, and as a result of doing that, I went to see Mister Fein and I talked to him about rats and things. I did not get any money for that, either. I did it because I wanted Alfred to calm down.

“I got Alfred out of jail this morning,” Mack said, “and from what you tell me – and I do believe you – Alfred went home. This is good. Alfred safely at home is a situation which is not likely to complicate my life the way my life gets complicated when Alfred gets out on the street and brings a tire iron and jumps a cop.

“Or so I would think anyway,” Mack said. “Now you tell me that Alfred tells you that he was asleep and a fire started in your building. And this is after Alfred and some other people have told me how nobody is very happy with anything that goes on there.

“Now,” Mack said, “I do not know what went on in that building today, while Alfred was supposedly sleeping in it. I am not saying that I do. But I am suspicious, and I will tell you that quite candidly.”

“Mister Mack,” she said, “that fire was set.”

“That is what I suspected,” Mack said. “Just keep in mind that you are the one who said it first. It was not I who said it first.”

“It was,” she said. “Somebody was in that basement and they set off a whole bunch oily rags, and the smoke just filled that house and it’s a wonder Alfred didn’t suffocate. My curtains’re ruined and so’re all my bed linens and everything else. That smoke just came right up the stairs and it got into every single one of the apartments and it ruined everything we own, practically. Our clothes and everything.”

“And Alfred was in there,” Mack said.

“Mister Mack,” she said, “Alfred did not set no fire. I would stake my life on that.”

“You may be doing just that,” Mack said.